11. Simplified News for ESL and Literacy Students

(NOTE: This post is part of a series. Series index.)

Literacy and language skills are a surprisingly significant barrier to connecting low-income and minority communities to online and print news.

Some Statistics According to the literacy report released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

• About one in 20 adults in the U.S. is not literate in English.
  
• 11 million Americans lack the skills to handle many everyday tasks.
• 30 million adults may not be able to make sense of a simple pamphlet.
  
• More than 60% of all prison inmates are functionally illiterate.

Connecting with literacy and English (ESL) teachers and learners can be an especially powerful way to build goodwill in underserved communities. People who participate in these classes often are (or become) community leaders, or at least have increased influence in their social circle or workplace.

Suggested strategy…

Adapt selected relevant news stories into “Simplified English”—technique used by VOA and other orgs to reach people with limited English or literacy skills. Post these stories online (text and audio), provide a feed for them, and maybe offer print supplement for classes, community centers, etc.

How to adapt stories: Use mostly VOA’s Special English vocabulary (derived from Basic English) with simple sentence structure. It’s OK to introduce new words, just not too many in one story. (Resource: Easy does it: Language made simple, GreatReporter.com, Nov. 20, 2007)

Example projects:

• CA Distance Learning Project has adapted news stories on various topic from around the state so that they’re understandable to people new to English or with limited literacy skills. This is a resource for teachers and students, but news orgs could do similar adaptation for local English-learning communities.

  Example story: A New Plan for a Safer Dam. Adapted from Statehouse Gives Okay to Bolster Folsom Dam Flood Control, by News10 KXTV Sacramento. Includes audio as well as text.

• The Key: “Newspaper for new readers.” Coverage area: Wisconsin. Goals: Provide people with limited reading skills access to the main flow of information in the community and to provide teachers in adult basic education programs with quality materials which are relevant to the adult learner. In addition to the Web, the project publishes an eight-page monthly newspaper with a Wisconsin circulation of 15,000 copies. Partners with Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which donates the printing and provides other guidance and assistance.

  Example story: New Rules Protect Fish In Wisconsin (adapted from this Journal-Sentinel article)

Work with local ESL teachers: Invite them in to meet with editors. Find out which communities are among their students, and which issues or stories those communities would find interesting. Hire them as freelancers to spot and adapt the most relevant current stories.

Visit local ESL classes. Talk to students about how your news org works, what your goals are. Ask where they get their news, and what they like/don’t like about it. Invite their input. Ask how they would be most comfortable interacting with you about the news (communication channels/tools).

Offer relevant resources: Provide a Simple English guide to common forms for government programs that under-served communities often encounter—medicare, welfare, housing, immigration, etc. Could be useful to cross-link with news coverage of those programs, to promote readership.

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